Morning links: Oregon loses another player

It’s the first day of August – about three months before the start of the men’s basketball season – and Oregon has just nine scholarship players on the roster. The NCAA allows 13 scholarship players.

Following a turbulent summer in which three players – Dominic Artis, Damyean Dotson and Brandon Austin, were dismissed from the team following a sexual assault investigation, the Ducks lost another player this week – incoming freshman signee Ray Kasongo.

Kasongo had been a member of Oregon’s seven-player 2015 recruiting class. The others include: guards JaQuan Lyle, Ahmaad Rorie, Casey Benson and forwards Jordan Bell and Dwayne Benjamin and center Michael Chandler. Duck Territory reports Lyle, a five-star recruit, has yet to be admitted to Oregon.

Last season the Ducks compiled a 24-10 record and advanced to the NCAA Tournament round of 32. However, just three players return from that squad: all-Pac-12 guard Joseph Young and Jalil Abdul-Bassit and forward Elgin Cook.

Coach Dana Altman has nabbed several transfers late in the summer in the past and he’ll have to do it again to bolster a depleted roster. However, Altman is under more scrutiny than ever before and it may be difficult for him to entice players to the program.

The Ducks also must fill three positions (assistant coach, assistant director of basketball operations and assistant basketball conditioning coach) on the staff.

— Gary Parrish at CBSsports.com took a stab at a 2014-15 preseason All-American team and he included Arizona sophomore Rondae Hollis-Jefferson on his five-man squad. However, he could have just as easily picked Wildcats freshman Stanley Johnson.